Abstract The reuse of traditional construction materials attests to their high value over the long term. In fact, the practice has always demonstrated the inherent value of traditional raw materials and their products in confronting the issues of sustainability, in the broader sense of preserving resources – material and immaterial – for future generations. Throughout the history of building, the symbolic value of spolia (i.e. the use of ancient architectural elements in new construction) has gone hand-in-hand with the practice of recycling, demonstrating, at various levels, an intrinsic awareness of reuse as a tool for minimizing waste of materials and energy. Today, sustainability is rarely considered from a long-term perspective, and when it is, the approach tends to be from a broad theoretical standpoint. In the past, however, it was a common and necessary aspect of construction management, when the waste of materials was a forbidden luxury. This paper presents a review of the reuse of geomaterials, mainly stone, throughout the Italian history of construction, indicating major examples selected for their value as memorable references, describing common practices from antiquity to modern times, and concluding with a description of the actual state of the art of the practice, based on very recent and outstanding cases.

Abstract Sometime in the course of the second millennium BC , an earthquake appears to have triggered a massive eruption of the Santorini volcano. The immediate consequences of the earthquake closely followed by the eruption for Cretan society during the Late Minoan I period are rather difficult to characterize, although physical evidence in the form of Theran ash has shown up at an increasing number of sites. Certain features of the archaeological record, taken in isolation, have hardly been noticed in the past. The long-term effects of the eruption, however, have recently become more comprehensible thanks to a reconsideration of old and new archaeological evidence. The combined picture gives the impression of a period of societal stress following these events. Changes in architecture, storage and food production, artisan output, the distribution of prestige items, administrative patterns and ritual manifestations can be pinpointed archaeologically. These may and should be interpreted as disturbances in the political, economic, cult and security-related domains. It is argued that the inability of the Minoan palatial centres to adapt to changing circumstances caused by a double disaster, an earthquake followed by the eruption of Santorini, led to an increase in crisis-related situations, culminating in the widespread fire destructions which brought this palatial phase of Minoan civilization to an end and opened the way for mainland Mycenaean domination of the Aegean.